[cc-community] More discussion on NC

Alan Cox alan at lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk
Mon Oct 11 11:20:02 EDT 2010


> I call No True Scotsman. I am sorry, but what evidence leads you to 
> believe that the licence has "no real meaning"? There must be some piece 
> of evidence somewhere that the NC clause is invalid.
> 
> I find the argument about what constitutes "using" a licence bizarre 
> from a legal standpoint to say the least. Licences produce legal effects 
> regardless of whether they make it to court or produce disputes.
> 
> So, I have indeed used the NC licence, as have countless others.

If that is your definition of "used".

> > Good law and good contracts provide reasonable certainty for anticipated
> > cases or things that have happened before. That is one of the fundamental
> > purposes of law and recognized in the way UK and US law treats precedent.
> 
> That is not the case, bad contracts are enforced all the time, 
> thankfully there is no test for contract quality in contract law. I have 
> read some appalling EULAs who still produce legal effects unless they 
> blatantly contradict consumer law (such as unfair terms legislation), or 
> are clearly invalid because of the existence of a voiding and/or 
> nullifying reason. So, unless you can produce case law that declarews 
> the NC clause invalid, your opinion about its validity is just that, an 
> opinion.

I would suggest you re-read my email. I see no connection between your
response and the points I was making.

Yes it is entirely possible that one day NC will get caselaw. It'll no
doubt be expensive and messy. Worse still for a lot of NC users it will
give them an answer completely at odds with what they believed it meant.

If for example an educational institution was sued and it was decided NC
did not cover eductional use then a lot of people would be very unhappy
(see the CC study on NC). If the contrary was decided the same would be
true.

What use is a license whose interpretation is not clear to all parties ?
It has *nothing* to do with invalidity of the licence. There are as you
say lots of bad licences, but that is no excuse for the CC to be
pedalling one instead of fixing it to have a clear meaning.



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